


Drums In The Forest

by merrills



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Banter, Body Worship, Figuratively, Mahariel beating the crap out of laundry, Minor Character Death, Past Character Death, Zevran and Mahariel frolicking in the forest the way elves are supposed to
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-07
Updated: 2019-05-07
Packaged: 2020-02-27 16:47:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18743062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merrills/pseuds/merrills
Summary: When the group comes across an idyllic river, Zevran and Mahariel can't help but steal some time away from the group. Happiness can't last long, though, and in the end ghosts catch up with them.





	Drums In The Forest

The Brecilian Forest was the first place they travelled to where Mahariel felt truly at ease since this whole thing started. It showed in her walk, the familiar way in which her feet found the moss-covered ground with every step. She barely looked around, as one wouldn’t purposefully look around in their own room, but on the second day she started pointing out things she seemed to think her companions would like.

She’d noticed how Leliana would sometimes stop and marvel at the harmonious cacophony that was the birds’ chatter up high in the ancient trees, and specifically when a crow interjected. Or how Alistair almost walked into a tree on two separate occasions, distracted by staring up at how light was broken by the leaves in the trees’ crowns. How Wynne would point out plants and try to categorize them by name and use, and how Zevran would knowledgeably add to or correct her when it was a poisonous one.

If Sten was impressed he didn’t show it. He pointed out that the trees looked very old. Shale’s main voiced concern was if It and It’s companions planned to build an umbrella-like construction to avoid bird feces soiling the shiny new stones they’d gotten. Alistair’s comment that Shale would be fine they ignored, and Leliana’s suggestion that they could simply toss a blanket over their shoulders like a cape was met with: “That would look ridiculous.” And that was that.

Mahariel told Leliana of possible ways to lure crows and ravens closer. She explained that some of the cries they heard were corvids letting others know that their group was going their direction, and she gave examples of the birds’ intelligence. Much to Shale’s disapproval, the women crafted a loose plan to get a few of the birds interested in them, mostly for fun. And they even managed to halfway convince Morrigan to participate, once they pointed out the potential uses.

 Wynne and Zevran listened closely as Mahariel described how different plants they saw were used by the Dalish people, even if some of it they already knew. But it seemed important for Mahariel to talk, and so they let themselves be carried through the forest by her pleasant, deep voice. They compared and contrasted their knowledge and expanded each other’s.

 For Alistair, the elf picked flowers off of blooming bushes and from between the foot of trees. She showed him the different shapes and told him which carried pollen and which nectar, and which of those were preferred by what insects. At first the young warden blushed at the romantic implication that the older woman’s gesture suggested. But soon he calmed himself and got wrapped up in the technicalities of what Mahariel was telling him.

 This all happened on the first day, and on the first half of the second. The whole time the camp had been looking out for a source of flowing water, the first thing to find when venturing into woods and forests. For one, to have a point of orientation; and secondly, to have the primary vital need met – the one for water. According to their map, they would soon cross a slim arm of a bigger river, and they did. They even found an idyllic spot – a belly-like bulge in the river, set against the rough stone back of a hill. It gave the spot a sense of security. It was also surrounded by various-sized rocks and ferns around, circled by the welcoming patches of grass and spring flowers.

 Leliana suggested making camp a bit away from the water, where the dragonflies and mosquitoes would leave them in peace. They needed to refill their water and make out a strategy on how to comb through the forest to find a Dalish camp. Plus, she pointed out carefully, washing their clothes couldn’t hurt. Of which Wynne especially was an advocate, shooting a quick look at an innocent looking Alistair.

 They agreed to take turns getting water, two would go ahead while the rest build their tents. Mahariel and Zevran went ahead with two buckets and were naturally drawn to the small clearing.

 “Ah, such beauty,” Zevran sighed. He came to a halt a few feet away from the rim of trees framing the clearing and turned his face up at a ray of light. “I would never have known I’d miss this had I not been sent to assassinate you. Now I cannot imagine a life without this sight. Funny. Fate does play like the wind sometimes, as they say.”

 “I’d say it plays more like an avalanche, but that is just my humble experience,” Mahariel countered and kept walking.

 She heard a throaty chuckle behind her, and then then him approaching.  She found a spot where the ferns and water reeds were not blocking her access to water, and generously dunked in the bucket. With effort, she lifted it back up and swung it behind her to place it down. Zevran had been waiting behind her and did not anticipate the broad movement, so he almost got hit in the hip. Luckily, he had not been basking in sunshine then; he jumped out of the way.

 “Wo-ho! I knew you must be the most dangerous thing in this forest, but I thought at least I was safe!”

 “Come on, just get to it.”

 “What’s the rush, my warden?”

 Zevran copied what Mahariel did, while the warden copied the assassin’s brief moment of leisure. Her hands on her hips, she looked up at the patch of blue which the trees revealed. The sunshine blasting from the sky. The air was getting heavier as it was approaching midday, the insects’ buzzing busier. The suspense between serenity and dynamic speed made Mahariel feel lazy, and in her mind she thought of the question Zevran had just asked. When she lowered her head, something alarmed her.

 “What do you think you’re doing?” she yelled.

 Startled, the hunched over Antivan let the water glide through his fingers. “I am thirsty,” he protested as he turned his upper body.

 “City boy,” Mahariel growled. “You don’t drink from a body of water you don’t know without cooking the water first. You don’t know what lives in there, or what happened to it.”

 “You mean besides fish?”

 “Besides fish. You can thank me later when you don’t have the shits.”

 “My warden has a filthy mouth it seems,” Zevran mocked. “Is this water good for anything when uncooked?”

 Mahariel tilted her head, thought for a moment. Then she started undoing the straps of her armor. Zevran’s eyes lit up and stayed that way as they followed his companion’s movements. She walked over to a larger stone to the right, and continued to undress at a causal pace. It took her two minutes, all in all, to shed herself down to her bare skin. Without much deliberation or hesitation, she stepped up onto the big rock and dove in.

 Had it been an actual pond, that might have been an ill-conceived plan on two accounts. On one hand, the water might not have been deep enough to receive her body, and on the other water might have been stagnant and crawling with all kinds of slimy weeds and undefined unpleasantness. But luckily, it was part of a body of water that was flowing at a leisurely pace. It had a few currents, Mahariel noticed as they were swirling against her skin, but they were not strong. And the water was more or less clear when she opened her eyes.

 The elf’s dive was slowing down, but she was keeping her arms extended - hand over hand - and her body rigid to see how far the water would carry her. And ambitious part of her hoped to swim to the other side of the river in one stroke, but she soon saw that would not be possible. She was slowed down even further, just as it got painful to hold the used air in her lung, and then performed a few broad strokes to push herself to the surface.

 A cool breeze and hot sunshine hit her face simultaneously, and there was something familiar about it. She felt herself transported back to a different time, to a similar situation. She had done this before, numerous times, over the course of her life. There were few things as good as being surrounded by tall trees, older than any country border, and bathing in a stream that did not care if you were here or not. Mahariel felt rejuvenated at once.

 But something was scratching in the back of her mind, too, bringing up a sadness she had tried so hard to not feel.

 A splash behind her brought her back to the present. She opened her eyes and moved her arms to have herself turn around in the water, and she saw that Zevran had followed her lead. In the time it had taken her to swim a good distance and enjoy herself, the man had shed his armor and underclothes and dived in.

 The water was clear enough for Mahariel to see his lean brown body approach her. He came up rather close before changing course and coming up, but he had timed it perfectly. Apparently his grace was not confined to dry land.

 Zevran broke through the surface less than an arm’s length away from the warden, facing her. He grinned in a boyish way, which was only reinforced by the water dripping down from his long hair into his eyes.

 Mahariel couldn’t help but give him a warm smile, and his grin softened into something else as well.

 “That was good,” she said. “Now let’s see which one of us can do it faster. Back to the bank, then all the way to the stone wall on the other side, then back. Agreed?”

 To her surprise he didn’t respond, but instead let himself drop below the surface, turned around, and made use of the headstart he had. Mahariel cursed and followed.

 Before long, adrenalin was pumping through her body. Her head felt full, overloaded by the stimulation. The cold water passing her skin, the weak currents she had to push through, the lack of air, and the determination to beat Zevran at the challenge she set. The warden felt as alive as she often did after a battle, but here there was joy in it. Because it was just her, and her friend, and the forest.

 Zevran had made good use of his headstart; he was back at the shallows of the river when Mahariel was about halfway there. And he greeted her triumphantly, standing tall and proud with his hands stemmed into his hips in all of his nude glory.

 “I believe I am the winner of our little race,” he announced, clearly pleased with himself. “Do I get a prize?”

 Mahariel didn’t bother to make it all the way back to the river bank, seeing as Zevran had clearly won. Instead she came to a halt, floating where the river was just deep enough for her toes to not touch the ground. She swayed her arms slowly but sternly in the water to hold her position.

 “You get the satisfaction of having won, and the right to gloat. That should be enough for just about anyone.”

 Zevran pouted. “A shame. I was hoping for something more tangible. Such as your cut of meat for dinner tonight, or maybe something else.”

 “Get back here,” Mahariel said.

 She knew he was hoping for a specific reward for having won, but that was not what she had in mind. She was feeling heavy, lazy, kind of sleepy now that the exhaustion of the race had settled in. As Zevran was wading closer to her with an expectant expression on his face, Mahariel clenched the muscles in her belly and lifted her feet.

 It was a little like flying, she’d always found. And there was something so familiar and safe about having the water carry your body, just floating.

 Mahariel imagined, and especially growing up she had, that this was what being loved must feel like. A solid and strong kind of love, like parents may have for their children. She wouldn’t know.

 Ashalle raised her well and was free with her affections, and Mahariel’s clan loved her well enough. But could that truly replace the love she would have known from her parents? Though she supposed that if her mother had loved her, she wouldn’t have simply run off into the wilds after Mahariel’s father died. Mahariel would always wonder.

 She could feel Zevran approaching through the water. She had been paddling idly towards the center of the slow river, and so the man had to swim to catch up with her. She opened her eyes and lifted her head to turn and look at him

 There was a quiet invitation in her look, and so Zevran shifted his weight to be carried by the river, too. And so they stayed, eyes closed, swaying in the water.

 Birds were chirping at the height of their shrill voices, with and over one other. Hundreds of thousands of leaves rustling against each other in the wind. Twigs snapping when small animals made their ways over and under them in the bushes. Water swapping into their ears, blocking things out for a moment every now and then.

 Out of an impulse, Mahariel reached for Zevran and her finger tips found his cool skin. She looked to him, and he to her, and she grabbed for his hand. Then relaxed again.

 Mahariel wasn’t sure where that impulse had come from, and why all of the sudden it made her feel so terribly sad. But it didn’t take her long to figure it out. And hot tears stung her eyes when she remembered.

 Tamlen.

 It was almost like another life, lived by somebody she met once and nothing more. But immersed in a situation she’d been in so often before, in a place so much like places she had already visited, it was real and it was here and it hurt.

 Mahariel let go of Zevran’s hand and put more weight in her bottom to get herself in a vertical position. With her throat closed tight she wasn’t able to say anything, she dived towards the riverbank.

 They’d floated quite a bit away from their starting point, and Mahariel got slightly annoyed. Swimming back with broad strokes helped a little. She climbed out a little too hastily, and almost tumbled. Her heart was beating violently in her chest, so hard and painful she panted.

 Oh, what an irony it would be for her to fall on the most peaceful day she’d had in months, rather than in a sea of darkspawn blood.

 Standing there with grass and wet soil between her toes, though, her breathing slowed, her heart calmed down. And the world regained some brightness. She felt chilled, however, since the wind was meeting her skin before the sun could dry it.

 Beads of water ran from her hair down her back and chest, bothering her. She lifted her hands  to her dark mop of hair and started kneading her springy wet curls in quick movements to drain them a little, then shook her head.

 Once again, Zevran had followed her and Mahariel was amazed that he hadn’t said anything yet. Usually he couldn’t stop talking, period, but she had to give the assassin credit; he knew how to read a room.

 “Where’d you leave your clothes?” she asked.

 “Over there, my warden,” he replied dutifully.

 She noticed him examining her face carefully, his gaze wandering from her eyes over her forehead and then downward; assessing. Rationally, she knew he was merely trying to figure out if she was alright. How deeply upset exactly she was, in order to tailor his behavior to the situation. But with an old wound pried open, she felt challenged at the borders of her emotional privacy.

 “Get me a large stick,” she demanded perhaps a little too roughly, and he walked off.

 The next few minutes were all about getting out frustration. She collected both of their unders and searched them for stains and dirt. Then she examined the large rock and found that it was smooth and not set with algae and moss; the river would carry all of that away.

 Zevran returned with the stick and watched quietly as the warden used one of her knives to shed the wood of its outermost layer, at least in part. He wanted to comment on what a waste it was to use a perfectly good dagger for this work, but he knew better. They could whet it back in camp.

 Soon enough, Mahariel’s preparations were complete. She dropped the laundry in the river, pushed the stick among the clothes, and started moving it in a gentle loop. And then, suddenly, she started thrashing it with a might that should make any grown man fear to get in her way.

 Zevran had seen plenty of women do washing, and he had helped often enough. He had only ever seen it in multiple tubs, though, with soap and washing boards and bleach. This was much more interesting to watch, he thought to himself.

 Mahariel, hunched over,  nude and sweating profusely, beating the living Void out of the sweat and dirt of their linen clothing.

 “I believe we should keep the stick after you are done with this,” he commented lightly. “If you go at the darkspawn the way you are going at our underwear, I don’t see how they would stand a chance.”

 The woman turned for just a second to flash him something between an amused smile and a vicious grin, and Zevran couldn’t keep excitement from bubbling up in his belly. This was an attractive woman, naked and with no shame or second thought about it, performing an act of strength in a beautiful forest clearing. He had seen paintings of female wood sprites in Antiva, and this reminded him of that. Only that those mythical creatures had been relaxing and kissing by idle springs, not thrashing at inanimate objects.

 It took her a good ten minutes of beating on the clothes in the river until she decided they were probably clean enough now. By then the show had lost its novelty to Zevran, who retreated to a sunny patch of grass and flowers to lay down, and Mahariel was exhausted.

 She fished the clothing out of the water and spread them on the sun-kissed rock to dry. She also decided that Zevran was the ultimate host of good ideas today, and joined him.

 Laying on his back, he opened his eyes when he heard her approach and watched the warden settle down next to him, but on her belly.

 “Done defeating the evils plaguing our clothes?”

 “For now,” she murmured with her forehead leaning on her crossed arms.

 “That was quite impressive.”

 “Did you think so when the women in your whore house were doing laundry, too?”

 “Oh, absolutely,” Zevran confirmed empathetically. “I have always had great admiration for the work women do. And I lend them my help often enough.”

 “Good. The next round is yours, then.”

 He chuckled, even though he knew she was probably serious. But he would worry about crossing that bridge when he’d come to it. There was something much more interesting holding his attention now; Zevran turned to her, supporting himself on his elbow.

 The warden’s back was laid out in the most delicious way. Zevran followed the curve of her spine from her shoulders down to her buttocks, once, twice. It was pleasing to the eye, especially seeing her body rise and descend with the woman’s even breaths.

 Her skin glistened with a golden sheen as part of her deep dark skin. Zevran turned his head this way, that way, and the gold travelled with his eyes. He tried to imagine Mahariel in a gown pleated with gold, but couldn’t settle on a base color that would suit her. Something deep and luxurious as burgundy, or midnight-blue? Or rather something with a contrast, such as white or cream? He wondered for a moment what Dalish people wore, and what Mahariel had worn before she joined the wardens. But this was not the moment to ask.

 The warden seemed to be slowly falling asleep in the radiant sunshine. A bout of warm affection started to spread in his chest as he was looking down to her.

 He was grateful to be alive. He had been since the moment he fell unconscious when fighting the wardens. It was silly, how being eye to eye with his’s own death suddenly revived his will to live. And he had not taken it as lightly as before, when he was a crow.

 He had always been expendable, only as valuable as his kills. So Zevran tried to be the best, and was the best (in his own not-too-humble opinion), but it also made him cocky. With the recklessness of youth and his early desensitising to death, he thought he was invincible.

 Going through the heartache he did with Rinna, the wish to die, and the mercy of the wardens, he felt he’d aged 5 years at least. He was not the same stupid, yet handsome and charming boy he was before. He was now a mature, yet handsome and charming man.

 And he was lucky to have fallen into the hands of someone who did not press on exerting the power she had over him. It would be ease to use and abuse his oath to her, and yet she didn’t. Mahariel treated him as an equal, in spite of the attempt on her life, and he Zevran was relieved and grateful that he had given his agency in the hands of someone so principled and kind.

 He tried to keep himself from touching her and to contend himself with just looking, but it was difficult. And in the end, he yielded to the wish.

 Right where the golden gleam on her skin was brightest, he lightly put his index finger, just on the height of her shoulder blade. It covered up the gold, and instead his own skin moved into focus. It was golden, too, but more so in tone than in reflection. Mahariel was much darker than him, and her skin was a joy to look at.

 It was cool, now that her sweat had more or less dried and the breeze danced over her back. Bolder, Zevran lifted his finger and touched the index and middle one down on a spot higher, just under her shoulder, to trace his way down to the dip. He did it gently, not too fast, and watched for her reaction.

 There was none.

And so Zevran got lost. He touched the skin above her spine, sending him down the slope. He traced the edges of the few visible muscles in her back. He mindfully sent his fingers down to touch the dip of her waist and a few centimeteres down her hip, briefly, carefully, just to see if the plush skin was as soft as he imagined. And when his curiosity was sated, he started drawing loops, circles and patterns on her protruding shoulder blade and her arm.

 A small sigh escaped Mahariel, betraying that she was more or less awake. Zevran’s fingers stopped where they were.

 “This is nice,” he heard her say sleepily. “Tamlen used to do that. We used every chance we had to bathe in ponds and rivers and streams, even if we were supposed to be hunting. It was just so nice to get some time away. And forget everything.”

 “Mmmh. It is. One must make time for pleasure in life. Say, did this Tamlen of yours and you spend your time naked outside of the occasional bath?”

 “It wasn’t like that. We were friends, we grew up together. We messed around when Tamlen wanted to impress Marika, and he was insecure because he didn’t know anything… but it was never serious. We were just young, playing around…”

 “Did you, now?” Zevran quipped. “Are you sure this Tamlen isn’t a spurned lover of yours? I quite like the idea of you as a heartbreaker.”

 By the heavy silence he could tell that his playful shot in the dark had not gone where he had intended.

 “No,” was the response now - sharper, and more alert. “He was a friend who died.”

 “I’m sorry.”

 And he meant it. He wondered if she wanted his hand off her back, but she made no move to remove herself or tell him to stop. And so now, instead of softly caressing her skin, he kept the palm of his hand in the dip of her back. Warm, solid.

 “We grew up together,” Mahariel continued after a while. Her voice was slow and heavy. “I was two years older than him. We were the two youngest children in camp at the time, so of course we bonded. Running around, practicing with weapons, hunting for snails, looking for hideouts. Things kids just do.”

 Zevran smiled at the thought of two wild dark children dashing through the underwood like rabbits, chasing one another.

 “He and I were different, but we worked. He was a good archer, even if he was a little too impulsive. Curious, cocky, and a little too confident for his own good.” She turned her head to look at him from those shiny black eyes. “You remind me a little of him, sometimes.”

 “I hope this is a favorable comparison.”

 “I think so.” She paused, and her eyelashes fluttered before she turned her head back towards the ground. “You’re not as reckless as he was.”

 “Did he die because of it?” Zevran asked carefully.

 “He touched a magic mirror and got the Blight. I did, too. Alistair’s mentor happened to be in the ruin and saved me, but he couldn’t find Tamlen. We went out looking for him later, but he wasn’t there anymore. Duncan said he must’ve died, after three days untreated in that ruin. And I went with him, because joining the Grey Wardens is the only cure.”

 He could feel Mahariel tense under his hand. Her breathing was becoming shorter and more irregular, and with his hand still on her back, it felt like he was touching on a drum that was still vibrating after its last hit.

 “I am sorry, Mahariel. Losing people you care for is difficult to bear,” he said.

 Once again, she looked at him.

 “Have you?”

 The assassin opened his mouth before he even knew what he was going to say, but was spared an answer. Alistair, the wonderful oaf, had come to look for them, with Leliana tagging along.

 “Zevran! Mahariel!”

 He had recognized them from afar and came running, but came to an abrupt halt when he saw that the two elves were nude. Within an instant his face started to turn visibly red. Leliana, a bard who had found people (and had also participated in) in compromising situations, was not as easily thrown.

 “Oh my,” she commented good-naturedly when she saw Zevran on his side, his assets clearly visible, and Mahariel on her back with sunlight bouncing off her shapely bottom.

 “That- we thought something had happened to you guys!” Alistair complained.

 “Something did happen,” Zevran replied flatly. “We came here to get water and realized it would be a sin to not make use of such an excellent opportunity for a bath. Wynne said so herself.”

 “Oh, that is a load of crap,” Leliana countered. “You two just wanted to avoid work! And here we were setting up the entire camp, even your tents! Shame on you!”

 “We appreciate it,” Mahariel interjected. She stemmed herself up using her lower arms and turned to her other friends. “We also washed our clothes. If you have any laundry you need done, Zevran and I will take care of it. To make up for the work we put on you. I’m sorry.”

 Alistair took on a darker shade of red, and Zevran couldn’t help but think that either his head would explode or another part of his was going to. At any rate he didn’t utter a sound, just nodded and stared off into the sky, and Zevran couldn’t blame him. Poor man probably had never seen a woman naked, and it was quite a sight to behold.

 If Leliana had been upset, that was now rectified. Once again she wasn’t subtle about looking where ever her eyes took her, though she was also not leering. She nodded as well.

 “Agreed,” she said firmly. “I’ll let the others know. Do bring the buckets of water, please.”

 And with that she turned around, grabbed the warden’s wrist and pulled him with her.

 “That was a magnificent spectacle,” Zevran grinned when they were gone. “We should take off our clothes in front of the others more often. Although I have to admit, I could do without laundry duty. Though I suppose it is a silver lining to be doing it with you and your expertise, my warden.”

 “What are you talking about?” Mahariel asked flatly. “I will be enjoying dinner. I told you the next round of laundry is on you, since you admire women’s work so much. Though I might be convinced to lend you a hand. If you ask very nicely.”

 Zevran let let himself drop on his back dramatically, throwing one arm over his face.

 “Oh my cruel, cruel warden!”

 Mahariel grinned at the unconvincing theatricality. “And you should really get started, you’re losing daylight.”

 

 

It was almost like she’d summoned him with her grief.

 That night, the camp was attacked by darkspawn. Shrieks and ghouls of varying shapes and sizes came out of the woodwork. Lucky for the wardens and their companions, Leliana had an excellent sense for danger. She called alarm before they even showed themselves, and took three down by arrows while the others where strapping on armor and getting ready.

 There were not hard to take down, not with this many people in camp, except for one.

 Mahariel was in front of him first, daggers held in an extended position that feigned openness when the rest of her body was tensed and coiled like a spring. But before she could attack, something froze her.

 “Y _ou… lethallan…_ ”

 “ _No…_ ”

 She didn’t remember opening her mouth to speak, but the word came out nevertheless. At first she was just shocked that the ghoul spoke, then that it used the familial way to address her. Only when she stopped to look at the monster’s features and its armor did she recognize the voice.

 She had never heard Tamlen sound so strained, so pained.

 The others had been ready to join their leader in attack, and stopped dead when they saw the way Mahariel frozen in position. Everybody knew immediately that something was terribly wrong - this was not a regular darkspawn encounter. Nevertheless none of them let their guard drop. Zevran, Shale, Alistair and Sten ready to charge at a heartbeat’s notice; Morrigan keeping lightning at her fingertips, her own hair rising with the effort to keep the electricity at bay; Wynne holding a spell of protection ready to throw over the warden; and Leliana, aimed and ready to shoot an arrow right through the darkspawn’s skull.

 “ _Don’t… don’t come near me- stay away!_ ”

 “No!”

 Tamlen swirled around, dashed away from camp, an Mahariel followed without a second thought. She didn’t have a speck of a plan, all she knew that he was here and she would not lose sight of him again if she could help it.

 He didn’t get far, though. Wounded from earlier, he was forced to stop and so she caught up with him easily.

 With a pang in her chest she recalled that she had always been quicker than him, always able to reach him when they played catch.

 “ _Don’t - look at me. I am… sick…_ ”

 “I know.” Tears welled up in her eyes, she couldn’t help it. She wished she could be stronger in this moment, but she felt so exhausted and broken. “We can help you, Tamlen. Don’t be afraid.”

 “ _No help! No... help for me. The song… in my head… it sings to me… I can’t stop it._ ”

 Mahariel started shaking violently, and her grip on the daggers loosened.

 “ _Don’t want… to hurt you, lethallan. Please… stop me…_ ”

 “Don’t ask me to kill you,” she sobbed. “I can’t do that.”

 “ _Too far. You cannot help me… I’m so sorry..._ ”

 Mahariel stumbled back, tears still blinding her, and she almost dropped her weapons. An arrow whistled by her head and she could hear the _thump_ as it found its target. A spell was cast, though she couldn’t tell what kind, and both of those things gave her enough time to somewhat regain her composure.

 “Stay back!” she yelled directed at her friends, flipped the hilts of her daggers so that the blades pointed backwards instead of to the front, and charged.

 The spell had been one to trap Tamlen, and so it was not even truly a fight. She stabbed at him in quick succession, once, twice, thrice, in chest and belly, and then struck out to slit his throat.

 He fell where he stood, without a sound. And so did Mahariel, landing on her knees, hunched over, sobbing, and wailing. Nobody said anything, and it was so quiet but for the Warden’s grief. The moment stretched and stretched on, until it became unbearable. The companions sheathed their weapons, and Leliana was the first to go to her. Zevran followed, both of them lifting Mahariel by her arms and supporting her in her walk to the tent. Sten murmured something about fortifications, and Wynne simply swore off a restful night.

 There was nothing to do, nothing to say.

 And the corpse of one who was once well loved was still laying there, bleeding, between patches of soft grass and with his face turned up to the stars.

 

 

The next morning, it was surprisingly Alistair who suggested a funeral. Morrigan, Sten and Shale disapproved; they saw no point, and with the attack last night a risen urgency to move on. But Alistair insisted. It’s what he would have wanted for Duncan, had there been a corpse to mourn.

 Mahariel was the last to come out of her tent. By then, a grave had been dug and the ghoul more or less carefully placed within it. She did not comment on it, or even said thanks. She just stood there for a while, between Alistair and Wynne, looking down on what was once her friend.

 “Leliana?” Alistair looked to the nun, somewhat nudging her to say something.

 Leliana cleared her throat. “I don’t know any elven funeral rites-”

 “Sing the song of mourning,” Mahariel interrupted, turning her gaze on her. “As you did that one time. Please.”

 The intensity in the elf’s eyes shook something in Leliana, and so she only nodded. The woman closed her eyes and took a deep breath - and then filled the camp with the first notes, loud and clear.

 It was an old melody, filled with sadness and melancholy. And Leliana did it justice. Not once did her voice waver, and she carried the tune like she had just lost someone herself.

 Mahariel closed her eyes and let herself be enveloped. Ever since last night, she had had no words. All the things over the past few weeks she had wished she could tell her childhood friend had been brandished from her mind with the tragedy of the situation. But listening to Leliana’s soothing voice, she felt them coming back.

 And so when the song was over, and all stood motionless for a second, Mahariel went down on her knees.

 “Tamlen,” she began. “I’ve been thinking a lot about… what I would say to you if you were still alive. I wanted to apologize for everything that happened, that I didn’t stop you… but nothing seems as important as this: -

 “I miss you. Every day since we found that stupid mirror, I have missed you.” Her voice shook, and she lowered her head. “I never thought I’d have to be apart from you, and it’s harder than I could have imagined. Every day I want to talk to you, and I can’t. I wish we could have saved you, and that you’d have been taken to Ostagar with me. I wish you’d been there for the battle, I wish you’d been there in Redcliffe, and I wish you’d be fighting by my side right now. Everything would be easier. But most of all I wish none of this had ever happened, that we were back home with our clan and fleeing this Blight.

 “But I’m here, and you’re dead, and I’m sorry that all this happened. You didn’t deserve it. Just know that… that I’ll never have a friend like you again. And I will miss you everyday until I die. You are my friend, my brother, _ma vhenan_. And I will never be whole again without you.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> I chose to have the Darkspawn attack happen in the Brecilian Forest because... oh darn it just because!


End file.
